Post date: Aug 25, 2013 9:28:00 PM
By David Austin, published in the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise on 8/25/2013
The current group of seventh-graders within the Bartlesville Public School District will become freshmen during the fall of 2015. When they do, they could become the first group of ninth-graders to attend a four-year high school in Bartlesville in more than 30 years.
A $36.72 million school bond issue proposal —which will result in no tax increase — is scheduled to go before voters on Tuesday, Sept. 10. Among the many highlights of the proposal would be the upgrade and expansion of Bartlesville High School. The expansion and improvements would allow the school, which currently features all of the district’s juniors and seniors, to accommodate all BPSD freshmen and sophomores as well.
The turnaround time from the passage of the school bond issue to the moment at which the renovated BHS would be ready to accommodate all of the district’s high school students would be approximately two years. That begs the question: How can such a significant project be turned around in such a seemingly short amount of time?
The answer can be found in a partnership between the school district and the City of Bartlesville, which the city council approved during a regular meeting earlier this month. Similar agreements have been used to facilitate an estimated $1 billion worth of school construction in Oklahoma in the last two years alone.
“The city and the Bartlesville Board of Education have both been involved in evaluating this process and are comfortable it is appropriate,” says Bartlesville mayor Tom Gorman. “The use of the conduit financing tool is widespread, and it has stood the test of time.
“This does not subject the city to any additional responsibilities, and it benefits the school district.”
While the current school bond issue proposal would mark the first time the BPSD has entered into a conduit financing agreement with the city, more than half of the other Class 6A school districts within the state have done so. One of the biggest reasons for this is to expedite the completion of projects. Without this arrangement, the projects contemplated in this bond issue would take an estimated eight years.
While previous school bond issue proposals allowed the BPSD to make significant improvements to its elementary schools, the new proposal takes aim at improvements at the secondary level. Among the highlights of the proposal are upgrades and renovations to Central Middle School and the Bartlesville Mid-High School facility. The plan calls for the current Madison Middle School building to be demolished. While BHS would accommodate all of the district’s students from grades nine through 12, youngsters from grades six through eight would attend either Central or the reconfigured Mid-High building, which would in effect replace Madison.
The proposal features security upgrades throughout the district as well.
“Shortening the construction timeframe by using the conduit financing technique allows students to start benefiting from the reconfigured secondary facilities more quickly, captures currently favorable construction cost conditions that may not be present in eight years, and more quickly captures the operational cost savings from shuttering the Madison building,” notes Bartlesville Board of Education president Doug Divelbiss. “Most importantly, it allows the academic benefits of this configuration to begin enhancing the student achievement that our kids have done such a good job with already.”
Originally constructed in the 1950s in a quickly regrettable “California” style, the Madison facility presents structural challenges that would be cost prohibitive to address. In addition, the district can operate more efficiently by moving from four secondary sites to three.
Studies show that by eliminating a transition from one school to another, students often fare better. So, by forgoing the ninth- and 10th-grade mid-high concept, a transition would be eliminated.
The conduit financing agreement between the BPSD and the City of Bartlesville creates a trust authority which is required to take advantage of the historically low construction costs and interest rates that are present today. Thanks to the agreement, while the improvements to BHS would be completed in approximately two years, all of the projects called for in the school bond issue proposal would be finished within three years. Within Washington County, the Dewey and Caney Valley school districts have completed bond issue projects which included conduit financing agreements. Many non-school projects within Bartlesville have been financed in the same manner, including the Green Country Village Retirement Community.
Initially unveiled in the fall of 1981 after the consolidation of the city’s former College and Sooner high schools, Bartlesville High School has never been home to freshmen and sophomores. But if voters approve the school bond issue proposal on Sept. 10, that fact will soon change.
“A first-rate public school system is critical to the process of attracting jobs and residents to the City of Bartlesville,” says Bartlesville city council member Ted Lockin. “Employers seek great school systems to make themselves competitive in the recruitment of new employees.
“Bartlesville has a history of providing such a school system and this school bond issue proposal is a significant step toward continuing that.”
David Austin is the co-chair of the communications sub-committee for the Bartlesville Public School District’s Long Range Facilities Planning Committee.